Although it might have appeared that little was going on in the gallery for some time, in fact a major update has been in progress on the Pontypridd gallery.  Whilst things like this are never complete, there are no further planned updates to this gallery although if suitable new material becomes available it will be added.

This new update comprises approximately 450 new images covering all aspects of Pontypridd UDC and Taff-Ely BC operation.  The trolleybus fleet is now included and the coverage of the route network has been improved, both in geographical coverage and in outlining the evolution of the network.

I should like to thank again the many photographers who have supported the gallery with some truly excellent images, it has been a delight to work with much of the material made available.

After many months of working on this I have lost the ability to read through the captions critically and so there are bound to be errors and omissions.  Please feel free to point them out as I want the gallery to be as accurate as possible.

Work will now proceed on updating several other galleries and moving on to other aspects of bus operation in South Wales, with the emphasis being on operation in the Valleys.  The next new gallery will be on Rhondda Transport but I'm not making any promises when!

9394Subject: Pontypridd UDC 12 (TG 1954)
Chassis: Bristol B
Body: Eastwood and Kenning B32R
Location: Pontypridd, Taff Street
Date: c.1948

Bristol B 12 is poised to operate Pontypridd’s hilliest route to Penycoedcae. It is carrying the pre-war lined-out livery, probably a legacy of its rather inactive war period. It was converted to producer gas in August 1940 and reduced to B29R. It was then laid up from December 1941 to February 1947. It was withdrawn in 1949, not long after this photograph.

The billboards behind display a range of once-famous names including Claude Rains, Betty Grable and David Niven. “Bonnie Prince Charlie” was in Technicolour but that seems to be its one redeeming feature. “Mother Wore Tights” was better-received, winning an Oscar for the score and being nominated for two others.

From an original negative in the David Beilby collection, photographer unknown.

When I started this latest Saddleworth update I little thought it would take me six months to complete, but here we are after six months, finished with 567 photos added.  In addition a lot of updating has taken place, with particular attention paid to the keywords - see the earlier blog entry.

The latest photographs were taken only yesterday, as I'd realised one or two gaps in coverage which could be easily rectified and some other opportunities arose in the process.  The last galleries to be done were those for the South Pennine Community Transport services from Holmfirth which, despite initial scepticism, seem to have become sustainable and hopefully will be with us for some time.  They are now using this Ford Transit and have just taken delivery of another, although that is intended for some new services around Marsden:

352102_36157Subject: South Pennine Community Transport HY15 NZK
Chassis: Ford Transit
Body: Ford Transit B15F
Location: Greenfield, Chew Valley Road
Date: 14-May-2016

Ford Transit HY15 NZK takes the bend on the hill at Greenfield station on the first day of the enhanced 2016 service. This vehicle is able to negotiate this corner a bit more easily than full size buses! There have been also historical photos added, one of my favourites being at almost the same place but over sixty years earlier:

180201_9413Subject: Manchester 3207 (JND 608)
Chassis: Leyland Titan PD2/3
Body: Metro-Cammell H32/26R
Location: Greenfield, Chew Valley Road
Date: 14-Nov-1954

These PD2s were the last batch of buses to the traditional Manchester design and featured on the service in the early days until operation was moved to Rochdale Road garage from Queens Road.

In the low late afternoon sun 3207 seems to be taking a somewhat odd line through the hairpin bend and it is to be hoped nothing was coming down!

Photograph courtesy of Chris Heaps. I hope you've enjoyed the additions.  I shall carry on recording the current scene and hopefully there will be new historical photographs to add as well and there will be another update at some point in the future.

The next update is to the Pontypridd/Taff-Ely gallery and there is quite a lot of additional material to come.

For two reasons it's a topical time to add a note about the way keywords are used in this gallery.  The first is that a long-standing issue with the Zenfolio search function was fixed not too long ago and the second is that I have been spending a lot of time updating them in the Saddleworth gallery.  Keywords are helpful when searching for something by giving a standardised form of wording that is used for each relevant photograph.  The keywords section on each page includes hyperlinks such that clicking on a keyword will lead to a gallery search for that word (or combination of words).

The keywords follow some standard rules but end up a little idiosyncratic as you have to develop your own rules - sometimes time tells you the rule wasn't quite right but it isn't practical to go back and change everything.  It's useful to give an idea about the way keywords are assigned so you know how they can help you in a search.  Keywords are normally assigned for registration, chassis, body, operator, previous operators and location:

Registration

This is always shown without the spaces as this gives a more effective text string for searching, for example "FBU827".

Chassis

The chassis make and model are assigned separately, for example "AEC" and "Reliance".  In some cases the top-level model variant is shown, for example "Titan PD1" and "Titan PD2" but sometimes the specific variant has to be used as there is no logical other way.  With Bristol, for example, they hardly ever gave models a name and "RE" would be a useless search string as it occurs in too many words.  Here I use the full designation, for example "RESL6G".

Body

The make and model name are again used, but here model names are less common.  I don't normally go for sub-variants, for example the different versions of Panorama Elite, but you will find exceptions!  I have also not used the MCW "Orion", something I only realised lately and it was too late to correct.  Where abbreviations are commonly used for coach builders I will use that as well - two common examples are "MCW" and "NCME".  MCW may not always be used accurately as technically it referred to the sales organisation for Metro-Cammell and Weymann but I have used it more for Metro-Cammell products.

Operator

This is the most idiosyncratic part.  I try to reflect the operator name in a way that will be searched for, but I realised that just putting "Oldham" would find all photographs taken in Oldham as well as Oldham Corporation buses, so I put "Oldham Corporation" and for municipalities I generally put the same, even for Manchester where Manchester City Transport was a later name.  UDCs will have the name and UDC, for example "Pontypridd UDC" but sometimes in addition the initials like "PUDC".  Other operators have the fleet name and where there are familiar abbreviations they are also used, for example "BMMO". "NWRCC" and "WWOC".  PTEs have the full name and also initials (e.g. "WMPTE") except for SELNEC which appears on its own along with the division like "Southern" when appropriate.

Previous operators

This follows the same rule as for Operator but includes any operators who had operated the vehicle before the date of the photo.  This includes examples that were ordered by one operator but were delivered to another (due to takeover or diversion).  It is only ever retrospective and doesn't look into the future after the date of the photo.

Location

This is more self-explanatory and will generally just be the place where the photograph is taken.  Sometimes there is more than one name, to give a place and a more specific location.  Three such examples are "Oldham" and "Mumps", "Delph" and "Carrcote" and also "Greenfield" and "Greenfield station"

It's complicated to explain but much simpler to use, remember that if you want more photos like one seen, pick the appropriate keyword(s) from those displayed.  Remember also that I'm human and errors and omissions are more than likely!